


In The Pines

by saintscully



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - His Last Vow, Case fic (involving murder and sexual abuse of teens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Secrets, John Watson Whump, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Podfic Welcome, Screen Reader Compatible, Screen Reader Friendly, True Crime, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:33:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29845011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintscully/pseuds/saintscully
Summary: Months into Sherlock's painful recovery from Mary’s bullet, a client interrupts the uneasy silence at Baker Street. She comes bearing a small envelope, opening a Pandora's box revealing devastating secrets about the Watson family.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 78
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SherlockWatson_Holmes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockWatson_Holmes/gifts).



> The case in this story is based on a true-crime cold-case that took place in Baltimore, Maryland in 1969, made famous by a Netflix documentary (if you’d like to know which one and don’t mind that it might spoil the story for you, [click here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keepers)). Names and facts were changed to fit this fic, but this is in no way meant to be demeaning or disrespectful to the victims and their loved ones. As in every one of my fics, I make a point to treat the issues raised in them with utmost gentleness and sensitivity. 
> 
> Title comes from 'In the Pines', or as most of us know it thanks to Nirvana, 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night', an American folksong/murder ballad with [a fascinating history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Pines). Since I can't seem to embed YouTube on AO3 these days, I'd like to direct you to [this version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Yj0TC4BJs), which captures the mood of this story very well.
> 
> Written for [Kat](https://twitter.com/SherlockW_H) and based on her intriguing prompt, which was so good I had to drop everything else I was writing (ahem,[Turned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161855/chapters/66335432)) to get the first chapter out of my system. Don’t worry, Turned is coming back, I just need a bit more time to outline it.
> 
>  **Thank you to my dear betas:** [imagesymboltext](https://imagesymboltext.tumblr.com/) and [VeeRebekah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebekahVeeWatson/pseuds/RebekahVeeWatson).
> 
> I am [therealsaintscully on tumblr](https://therealsaintscully.tumblr.com) and [saintscully2](https://twitter.com/saintscully2) on Twitter.

Sherlock watches the sleet from the windows of Baker Street, lashing down on the umbrellas of the afternoon crowds bustling about outside. The late November day is colder than usual, but not enough for snow, not just yet. Passersby huddle into their coats and scarves as they go about their colorless life below him.

Not that Sherlock’s life is very colorful these days. Those who live in glass houses, et cetera.

He moves the bow away from the strings of his violin, though he hadn’t actually played it all day. The movement sends a jolt of phantom pain through his sternum, one he unconsciously wishes away with a grimace. Raising and lowering his hand is his own brand of physical therapy—a rebellious sort of physical therapy, just to remind everyone that once, a storm of man lived in these parts. A man who jumped from one roof to the other on the streets of London, who aimed a gun at consulting criminals, who was chained to the ceiling in Serbia.

His best hope for even the slightest physical victory is, for now, to be able to step on the coffee table on his way from the sofa to his chair. It makes John huff and, with the sigh of an over-exacting soldier, move the coffee table back to its rightful place, _exactly_ one foot from the sofa.

The elderly neighbour across the street moves to his own window dragging one leg after the other, slowly, slowly. The man draws an old, sturdy chair behind him and settles in it, nodding at Sherlock— _right on time_ —who completes their ritual with a small smile of defeat.

This is what he’s reduced to, months into his recovery from traitorous Mary’s bullet: standing by the window day in and day out, watching the shopkeepers, the bin lorries, the cars passing by.

He’s not alone in the flat, no. Not the only one wilting away in quiet desperation.

Mycroft insists that most people recovering from a near-fatal injury would pay good money for a live-in doctor, but this is the wrong kind of version of that specific doctor. Betrayed, wounded, heartbroken John Watson is a simmering pressure pot. Agitated and bored, it’s been a daily battle for both of them to keep the apartment standing in the face of Sherlock’s own turbulent moods once he was able to leave his bed.

Sherlock spends nearly every waking moment (and, if he’s honest with himself, those spent sleeping, too) under the doctor’s watchful eyes, eyes which betray the guilt and remorse over Mary’s part in Sherlock’s physical agony.

In the name of Sherlock’s recovery, and probably in the name of his own existential crisis, John has had them secluded for months, shut away from the world save for Mrs. Hudson’s daily visits and Mycroft’s frankly spine-chilling attempts at social calls.

 _‘No cases,’_ John’s been saying religiously every time an email or a text has Sherlock glancing lovingly at his Belstaff. Sometimes he adds a pointing, accusatory finger to make his message clearer. ‘ _Doctor’s orders.’_

He’d tried negotiating once, about a week ago. He hadn’t required pain medication for forty-eight hours at that point, and that had to mean something, didn’t it? “Lestrade—”

“Cherishes his own life,” John said mid-chew, not even bothering to look up at Sherlock’s own scowl.

And that was that.

Sherlock pouts at the window. The elderly neighbour shrugs.

“Tea?” John asks, leaving his chair with a grunt and a crick in his neck.

Sherlock doesn’t answer, just counts.

1...2...3...4...5..6…

It takes John six steps to reach the kitchen counter, he knows, seeing the events unfolding in his mind’s eye. He’ll stop to stretch with a… _sigh_ , there it is, as he looks at the mess Sherlock had left on the table. One sweep over the bundle of papers—there’s the ruffling of the pages, and a huff as he gives up on the idea.

 _‘You didn’t say no’_ , Sherlock mumbles the words to himself in a half-whisper. John’s voice travels to the window not a millisecond later: “You didn’t say no, so you’re getting one.”

It’s like living in a never ending deja-vu, the sensation grating on his nerves he thinks, when a figure in the street catches his eye. They dart to the left, and his entire head follows, fixating on her like an eagle. It’s a woman, holding up her phone to a passerby while asking for directions ( _mid-forties; so clearly a tourist—American—it’s nearly hard to watch; a teacher. A bossy one at that)._

She’s a client. He knows she is. When the woman follows another woman’s finger pointing up at 221, Sherlock’s back straightens immediately, sending jets of adrenaline through his convalescing body.

A walk-in. A foreigner, who took a long train ride here, from the looks of it. This could be good.

_Finally!_

“How’s that tea coming, John?” He turns around swiftly, finding John staring unseeing at the kettle.

 _Good lord,_ his body bubbles with excitement, _we really do need a good distraction_. He’ll take anything at this point, even a two.

John fixes him with a suspicious glare from under his lashes, when… _Ah!_ Saved by the bell, literally. It’s all he can do to stop himself from rushing down the seventeen stairs himself, welcoming their guest to the suffocatingly-quiet flat. He needn’t, though. Two sets of footsteps quickly rush up the stairs as Mrs. Hudson shows the woman up.

“Boys?” She cracks the door open, catching Sherlock’s eye.

“Yes, come in,” Sherlock says, gently placing the violin in its case. He moves a hand through his hair, down his shirt.

“No.” John heads for the door, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. We’re not taking on new cases.”

The woman peeks her head through the door ( _definitely American_ ), searching for the source of John’s voice. “Dr. Watson, is that you?”

John stops, now that he stands fully in front of the woman. He blinks for a beat. “Do I know you?”

Sherlock would bet Billy that John does, though he can’t tell how, exactly. Not yet.

“Oh, I was hoping you’d be here!” the woman says, bringing a hand to her chest. Encouraged, she bustles her way past a bemused Mrs. Hudson. She reaches out a hand to Sherlock. “You must be Mr. Holmes.”

“Indeed,” he says far too delightfully, thrown by her accent; it’s American alright, New England, for sure—with dropped Rs and funny sounding mergers. Well practiced, first nature, but there’s an English undertone he finally catches when she speaks next:

“You’re a tall one,” she says with a smile, looking between Sherlock and John.

 _Ah, Essex_ , he hums in satisfaction. “Someone around here has to be.”

“Sorry, who are you again?” John asks, hoping to catch up with the proceedings as Mrs. Hudson wordlessly takes over the tea making.

“Lottie, Lottie Poole,” she says, nodding expectantly. “From church?”

“Oh, right!” John says, shaking his head. “Right, of course!”

“John, would you be so kind and show our guest in?” Sherlock says, berating John so convincingly the other man is left with no time to recuperate from the change in their roles. John cooperates, like he always does when he’s confused, showing the woman to a chair.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me, I’m a few years older after all,” the woman continues unperturbed, “and we emigrated to America when I met my husband, but… I’ve been reading your blog for years. I keep telling my students I remember you from when you were this tall.”

“Right.” John laughs awkwardly.

“What can we do for you Mrs. Poole?” Sherlock urges her, sitting in his chair. “I’m afraid we haven't taken any cases in a while, so one might say Dr. Watson here is a bit rusty”—he ignores John’s uttered ‘ _Sherlock_!’—“but I assure you, my reputation is well earned.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Poole's cheeks turn slightly red, looking between the two men in front of her. “This isn't about a case.”

_Oh._

Sherlock can’t help but frown. “It’s not?”

“I mean, there might have been a mystery but I think I solved it myself, I suppose.” She smiles, clearing her throat when she catches the disappointment on Sherlock’s face. “My uncle died.”

Sherlock breathes impatiently through a wave of tsking and “My condolences” and “I’m sorry”.

“Ernie, Ernie Sutton. Does the name ring a bell?” she asks John.

“Afraid not,” John says.

“I barely knew him myself. He was… a character, back in his heyday, the wrong crowd to get mixed up with. Petty thefts, I’ve been told. Hung around with rough crowds in Chelmsford,” she says. “Well, he passed away, and my Mum has been ill for a while, so I came over to make the arrangements. Funeral, clearing out the flat, all of that.”

“Of course,” John says amiably.

“Turns out the man was a hoarder,” she says with a sigh. “Mountains upon mountains of junk. Took us days to clear the place, the things I found there. A lot of it is... probably stolen, I suppose, but anyway—I remember growing up he used to joke about how he buried a treasure in the grove next to his flat by some tree we used to play under, and when we cleared his things I thought… what the hell, you know? And guess what? I found a box. Most of it was junk too, I suppose…” Her thought trails off unfinished as she reaches into her purse, pulling a dossier out and flicking through it. “But then I found this and I… I thought you'd like to have it.”

Out of the dossier, she pulls an unmarked, yellowing envelope. Sherlock nearly bends over with curiosity as she hands it over to John. The envelope is small, very small; it’s the sort they use for greeting cards at flower shops, by the kind of people who really don’t have a lot to say.

John’s face wrinkles with concentration as he examines the envelope. He moves quickly to catch a necklace that slips out of it; it’s a delicate, dainty thing. Old, but unused. The chain is silver plated , and on it sit two small, colored stones, attached to the bottom of what looks like a bell-shaped pendant.

“My husband is a jeweler. He took one look at that necklace and said we couldn’t just throw it out like the rest. It’s old and… it’s probably not worth much,” she shrugs. “The stones aren't real, either; they're colored rhinestones. But it was a custom order, by the looks of it ; someone put thought into it."

Sherlock watches John intently as he examines the necklace, turning it one way, then another. He looks back up at the woman with more questions than answers now.

“There’s something else in the envelope,” she says, jutting her chin.

John tilts the envelope on its head and a photograph escapes. Black and white, Sherlock can tell. Two men leaning against a car. Taken in the sixties, maybe early seventies.

“That’s—” John starts without looking up.

“Who?” Mrs Hudson comes over, just as curious.

John clears his throat. “My Dad.”

Sherlock’s eyes dart to the doctor, his attention now zeroing in on John's tightly wound body at the sight in front of him.

“Who’s that with him?” Mrs. Hudson asks.

“That’s my uncle,” Lottie says. “That’s Ernie. I take it you don’t remember him?”

John shakes his head, still eyeing the photograph.

“And the necklace?” Mrs. Poole asks. “Does it look familiar?

“Should it?” John asks, his forehead wrinkled when he finally looks up at her.

The woman blinks in surprise. “I thought it might be your family’s. Your mother’s, or… you have a sister, right? An older sister?”

John nods again, his brows furrowed as though reaching down to the depths of his brain, racking it for clues.

“The stones are supposed to imitate a birthstone. Garnet, for January, and Sapphire for September.” Mrs. Poole says hopefully.

“No, Harry's is February. Mum’s was August.” John pouts now. “Can’t think of anyone...”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” John says, almost apologetically.

Mrs. Poole sinks into her chair with a sigh, disappointment whittling down the feisty energy she’d brought with her the second she stepped into the flat. She stares unseeing at John, lost in thought. “That’s…”

“Strange,” John says in agreement, flipping over the photograph in his hand one last time. Three pairs of eyes watch him curiously, his silence louder than he must realize.

“Well,” Mrs. Poole says rather decidedly, patting her legs in discomfort, “I feel like such a fool now for bothering you.”

“It’s quite alright,” John says.

“I was so sure, what with it being in the same envelope—”

“It was a fair assumption.”

Mrs. Poole slumps again. She sighs, a heavy, long sigh; on the heels of it comes a smile too, one born out of anti-climax. She looks at Mrs. Hudson for support. “I guess I’ll be off, then.”

“Right.” John stuffs the necklace and photograph back into the small envelope, handing it back to her.

“You can keep the photo,” she says, braving a pat of his hand.

John’s lip twitches just barely. “That’s not necessary.”

“Oh, of course. You have a copy of it,” she says, stealing an uncomfortable glance at Sherlock.

“No.”

“Right,” she says, some sort of realization finally landing. What that realization is, Sherlock thinks, is the most interesting part of this rotten day. “Right, of course. Thank you,” she rallies, turning to Mrs. Hudson, then to Sherlock. “Thank you for seeing me. It was good to see you again, Dr. Watson.”

John stands ramrod straight, his left hand bunching unconsciously into a fist.

“I’ll walk you out, dear,” Mrs. Hudson says sympathetically, placing a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder.

“It still belongs to someone,” John says suddenly, and Sherlock turns to look at him in surprise. “The necklace. It wasn’t mine—well, ours, but someone might still like to have it.”

Mrs. Poole turns around with her whole body, evidently thankful for John’s kindness. “Right, of course.”

“A Facebook post goes a long way these days,” John suggests kindly. “Perhaps in one of those Chelmsford groups. Wouldn’t mind posting on my blog, if that helps.”

“Could you?” The woman lights up at the suggestion.

“Yeah, of course.” John nods one last time. “Of course.”

And then she leaves.

* * *

“ _What?_ ” John asks his newspaper later that evening, never bothering to turn around to watch Sherlock in his chair in the kitchen.

Finally.

He’s been grunting and huffing and mumbling in a bid for the other man’s attention for the better part of an hour now. Necklace lady is all but gone and forgotten, taking the promise of excitement with her. Never mind that, though. Sherlock has the wheels of a new plan to set in motion, and the sooner he starts, the better.

“Mummy.”

“What about her?”

“Christmas.”

John sighs, lowering the paper. “Is this a haiku?”

“Mummy insists on a Christmas visit this year,” Sherlock says. “She’s being aided and abetted by Mycroft. From months of convalescing here to two nights in that nut house; the conspiracy to drive me insane is well underway, I see.”

John hums, going back to his paper. He’s unimpressed. Long months in the flat have rendered him immune to Sherlock’s drama, it would seem.

“She says you must come too,” he says, laying it on rather thick.

“ _Must?_ ”

“She’s bossy.” Sherlock waves a dismissive hand at no one.

“You’ll hate it,” John says wistfully after a minute of consideration.

“Yes.”

“It’ll be embarrassing for you.” John finally turns around, watching Sherlock over his shoulder.

“Well, yes.”

John’s smile is a wicked thing. It lights the entire flat in an instant. “I’ll be there.”

 _One down, one more to go._ Sherlock straightens haughtily in his chair, swallowing. “And Mary, too.”

The smile is gone. It takes all the warmth and air in the flat with it.

“No.” John turns sourly back in his chair, away from Sherlock’s prying eyes.

“Mummy says—”

“Mummy’s not the boss of me,” Captain Watson declares.

_Does he have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?_

_Probably not._

“John—”

“No,” John says pointedly, angry at his newspaper again. “No Mary. Keep out.”

Sherlock purses his lips, despite himself. John is a hard nut to crack; it takes the patience of a saint to break him down, and Sherlock’s neither, but he’ll get there. He must.

* * *

An email notification pulls Sherlock out of his moroseness one early morning the following week as he hunches in concentration over his laptop—one he greets with a wrinkled forehead and a breathy mumble.

_Mrs. Charlotte Poole…?_

The notification comes from _his_ account, his website email—not John’s blog account. It takes him a second to put a face to the name.

 _Lottie_.

_Necklace lady._

He steals a glance at John’s sleeping form on the sofa, out like a light after another long, sleepless night attached to a tumbler of whisky.

He clicks the email open with a mixture of hope and carelessness—could be a misguided thank you letter ( _what for?_ ), could be another apology ( _again, what for?_ ). Her choice of emailing The Science of Deduction inbox is certainly intriguing.

He reads the email quickly, wordlessly; there’s a paragraph ending with a link, a photograph of the necklace, and an apology. After a short glance at the Facebook group she’d sent him to, he straightens ominously in his chair, his body humming with a hint of dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cherish every comment, so please leave one!


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been five long, excruciating hours since Lottie’s email landed in Sherlock’s inbox—an email he has memorized by now, word for word. He sits coiled like a spring in his chair, his head spinning with questions, watching John moping around the flat nursing his hangover with dry toast and a cup of very strong coffee.

_‘Dear Mr. Holmes,_

_Following my visit to your flat last week, I took Dr. Watson’s advice and posted a photo of the necklace on Facebook. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect any response at all…’_

“Just my luck,” John murmurs, rubbing his face in frustration, as though wishing to scrub the headache away. He’d been called in for a very rare afternoon shift at the surgery, something he hadn’t agreed to do for weeks. They insisted, claiming that a wave of the flu (stomach and otherwise) had been particularly bogging them down this week, taking some of the surgery’s staff with it.

It’s no luck, though, or lack thereof. Despite having known Sherlock for so long now, John still hasn’t figured out that coincidences are very rare indeed.

Harry is the administrative manager at John’s surgery. He’s a bulky, six-foot-two mountain of a man; an ex-security guard working at the surgery to finance his nursing education. In the days before the bullet and the wedding, when Sherlock would visit the soon-to-be Watsons at their workplace, Harry had the tendency to ogle hungrily at Sherlock in a way that made Mary smirk knowingly and John clear his throat incessantly.

He’d ignore Harry, mostly. Look back from under his lashes when the mood would strike him, chatting him up one time just for practice. There was nothing particularly interesting about him; he’d spared everyone’s well-being when he avoided mentioning the man’s inclination towards Japanese mermen sex dolls. He’d learned long ago that was the sort of information one should treasure for a special occasion.

Long story short, said sex dolls—Sherlock doesn’t judge; he only deduces—is how he’d managed, in just under ten minutes of texting, to coerce Harry to summon John to a shift. So far, so good; Harry had turned out to be useful after all.

_‘...so imagine my surprise when I received a message with interest about this necklace from the owner of this Facebook group, see link below. I’m wary of relaying their message over email, but it left me worried I may have unwittingly opened a can of worms I never intended to.’_

From his vantage point in his chair, Sherlock indulges the man and his need for inane conversations as he searches for his jacket.

“When will Mycroft be here?”

It’s the third time he’s asked that.

“Around twenty minutes,” Sherlock says patiently.

“Is he bringing you a case?” John peeks his head from the kitchen suspiciously. “You promised, Sherlock, no—”

“—Cases until my next check up, yes, I know.”

Sherlock had made no such promise and never would, but in the interest of getting John out of the flat as soon as possible, he’d agree with just about anything.

_‘The last thing I’d like to do is harm Dr. Watson’s reputation. Would you be available for a Skype call today, afternoon my time?’_

“All right,” John says, finally heading out the door. “I’ll be back after dinner. Don’t wait up.”

 _I won’t_ , he thinks, keeping the words to himself. With any luck, Mary might be at the surgery too, and that will most likely send John to one of his locals for a pint or three. In the current state of things, the more the merrier.

Sherlock hums a begrudging goodbye. His eyes narrow as he listens for the sound of the door to the street, finally moving to pull his laptop from under his chair.

* * *

The Facebook group, as soon as Sherlock finds it, is rather self-explanatory. ‘Justice for Sister Sofie Novák’, the title reads, next to a black-and-white photograph of a fair-faced young woman wearing a nun’s habit.

_‘We are a group of Chelmsford-native armchair researchers, dedicated to finding the truth about the murder of our Sixth Form teacher, Sister Sofie Novák, who was abducted and later found dead in a landfill near Parsonage Green in early 1972. If you have any details that might be helpful, please reach out to us here on Facebook or at justice4sofienovak@gmail.com’._

It’s a cold case—a high profile one, of the sort anyone in the country would have heard about at the time. Sister Novák ( _born Žofie in 1946, third generation to a blue-collar, unassuming family of Czechoslovakian roots, eldest child_ ) became a teacher when she joined the School Sisters of Saint Angela, an Ursuline teaching order. At the time of her death, she taught English Lit at the Sacred Heart Sixth Form College for Girls in Chelmsford.

She disappeared after doing her evening shopping in an upscale shopping centre one evening in early November, 1971. When she failed to answer her mother’s usual nine pm phone call, a distant relative living three blocks away was sent to check on her. Said relative came up with nothing; Sofie was nowhere to be found. When the nun’s car appeared hours later, parked illegally across the street from her ground flat and devoid of its owner, her family called the police.

Her body was found nearly two months later by a passing city official, thrown haphazardly in a pine grove-turned-landfill just outside Broomfield. Her skull was bashed. Hers would have been a slow, agonizing death.

Sherlock steeples his fingers on his lips and stares at the screen, calculating. John was all but seven months old when a killing blow was laid to the woman’s head. He’d have no memory of the events as they took place in real time, and would have only heard of them growing up, on the news or perhaps at church, years later.

It’s an interesting case, in and of itself, though Sherlock doesn’t usually bother with cold cases going back decades. There are so many of them, and he finds it much more fulfilling to solve more current ones. There are still family members to provide closure for, perpetrators to look straight in the eyes.

But here’s one such case seemingly brought right to his doorstep. The necklace means something—so much so, that a simple message had made Lottie worry.

_Why?_

He opens the photo of the necklace again, zooming in to inspect it closely in a way he hadn’t before when Lottie was at the flat. She was right—it wasn’t expensive, but it was evidently meaningful. It’s clearly a wedding gift: the small, delicate bell pendant is undoubtedly representative of a wedding bell, the stones most likely the bell’s clappers.

But Sofie Novák belonged to an enclosed religious order. She would have taken religious vows, preventing her from marrying. Was she considering leaving the order to marry? That’s not unheard of; he’ll require a short refresher in Catholicism, but not all vows are perpetual. But then, how does Ernie Sutton and John’s father fit into all of this?

Was she considering marrying one of them, perhaps finding herself in a relationship either her family or the Church would disapprove of? Was the necklace a gift from one of the men? Was her departure risking the reputation of the Church, of the order?

* * *

“...and according to our intelligence signals, there are no underground vaults underneath Appledore, despite your insistence on the matter,” Mycroft says, his long, crossed legs dangling as he occupies John’s chair. “I’ve had the opinions of numerous sources on this matter. There’s no technology available to hide any such structure. Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

“No underground vaults,” Mycroft says.

Sherlock blinks distractedly, bringing his brother into focus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, quite. There’s also the matter of Magnussen’s security detail. We doubt you’ll be allowed to walk in there without having your belongings scanned. If you insist on physically visiting Appledore,” Mycroft continues, “I’d suggest making it a solo trip, leaving Dr. Watson out of it.”

“Hmm,” is the only response Sherlock’s troubled mind allows. It’s only after a few moments that he realizes nobody has spoken for some time—a rare thing, whenever his brother is in the room.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Mycroft says with an infuriating, sour smirk.

Sherlock clears his throat. “I should think they’re worth far more than that.”

“You’ve not been listening.”

“No,” Sherlock simply admits.

“Is it the nun?” Mycroft asks, unfazed by the venomous glare Sherlock sends his way. “Facebook leaves so very little to the imagination these days, brother. What’s it to you?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought the good doctor was prohibiting any new cases.”

“He is, it’s infuriating.” The answer does nothing to prevent his brother from raising an eyebrow. “It’s research,” Sherlock lies, throwing them both into a pregnant impasse. The silence drags on long enough for Sherlock to break first, squirming in his chair.

“ _To what end_ , Sherlock?” Mycroft asks impatiently.

“Hamish Watson,” Sherlock finally blurts. He looks up at Mycroft, defeated. “John’s father.”

“What about him?”

“I need everything you have on him.”

Mycroft half-nods haughtily, staring down at Sherlock with tight lips. “I’d have thought you’d know everything by now.”

_No, not everything._

It’s very unlike him, certainly. Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, always makes a point to know everything about anyone and everyone. That is unless he gets that ominous feeling in his gut, the one that tells him—very rarely—that some things are better left alone.

With John Watson, he'd got that feeling early on.

Sherlock could have (should have) dug deep into the history of this fascinating man as soon as the doctor had come into the flat, sat down in his chair and made the place his own. He’d deduced many things about John the second he’d stepped into the lab that day. One of them shone like a lighthouse in a pitch-black night: the man had a past he’d wanted nothing to do with.

Unattached, untethered, John was leaning into that ghastly cane like a man running away from everything that had made him who he was. He was looking for something new; a fresh start. It was a sentiment Sherlock had known all too well himself. Thus, an unspoken agreement was made between the two men: accepting each other _as-is_ , as though they’d both popped into existence that day at the lab.

John never asked, never pried, even when the signs were there that Sherlock's own past was dark, threatening to drown them both. Sherlock—grateful, thankful Sherlock, happy for the opportunity not to reopen old wounds—had returned the favour.

To the best of his abilities, of course. He couldn’t not know _everything_.

“I know the basics,” he finally admits, referring to the most barebones of details he’d found in two yellowing death certificates shortly before John’s wedding. “Suicide. In prison, when John was very young.”

“Yes, presumably,” Mycroft nods. “Although you know how these things go. Suicide is very rarely the real cause of death in prison as far as child molestors go.”

Sherlock’s breath hitches before the sentence is even over. He clears his throat again, crossing his legs in hope of releasing the sudden tension in his muscles. “His mother—”

“Was hit crossing the street by a driver with a history of heart attacks and a revoked license. He had his final heart attack at the wheel, killing them both on the spot.”

Sherlock has to fight the urge to swallow loudly at that description, a dark pit opening up in his stomach. A dry, bureaucratic description on a death certificate is one thing; hearing the full tale of it, putting color to it, is a whole other thing.

This was in 1976. John was orphaned before he ever turned six.

“I need everything,” Sherlock says coolly, staring pointedly into his brother’s eyes. “Everything about the Watsons. His father, firstly, but his mother, and Harry too. Police reports, hospitalizations, employment records, welfare correspondence once both parents died.”

Mycroft measures him with a confident, all-knowing look.

“Even the stuff no one’s supposed to see,” Sherlock clarifies, determined.

“Is that wise, Sherlock?” Mycroft nods, a sad smile on his face. “Some scabs are better left… untouched.”

 _I’m afraid that horse has left the barn,_ Sherlock thinks as he stands up from his chair with a huff, his robe fanning away from his ankles as he heads for the door. _And it’s not even my fault this time_ , _imagine that_. He opens the door holding it open wide, clearing his throat so as to catch his brother’s attention.

“We’re not done discussing Magnussen,” Mycroft protests.

“Everything you can find, as soon as possible,” Sherlock instructs his brother, nodding at the open door.

They share a menacing glance as Mycroft steps out. Preoccupied, Sherlock only barely has the state of mind not to slam the door on his brother’s backside as the man grumbles as he leaves.

* * *

“ _Hello? Hello!_ ”

Sherlock grimaces at the loud greeting, staring at a black Skype video chat screen. “Yes, I can hear you!”

He’d secluded himself in the privacy of his bedroom, waiting impatiently for the timezones to finally make sense for his chat with Lottie, now that she was back in America. He’s got one earphone in his ear to listen to the conversation and the other dropped in his lap so he can listen for John’s tentative steps in the flat in case he comes home earlier than he expected.

Lottie, just like his very own mother, is uncomfortable with technology. “Hello! Mr. Holmes? Why isn’t this…” she calls loudly, deftly. “How do I… Jerry, come fix this!”

“Coming!”

“No, I can hear—I can hear you, Mrs. Poole!” Sherlock calls back, just as loudly.

“Hello?” Lottie asks again when her image finally shows up on her screen. “Oh, there you are. Hello!”

“Yes, hello.”

“Finally,” Lottie says with a smile. “So nice of you to talk to me on such short notice.”

“Of course,” Sherlock says amiably enough, holding back the urge to dismiss the pleasantries. He had, after all, prepared for this; Lottie isn’t a client. For the first time in a long while since anything of that sort had happened, Sherlock needed to be on _her_ side, not the other way around. In preparation for the conversation, deep breaths were taken, relaxation mantras were repeated and rolled eyes were considered to be out of the question.

“So.” She moves as though looking behind his shoulder conspiratorially. “Is Dr. Watson with you?”

“No, he’s out for the evening.”

“Right, good,” she says, relieved. “Did you get a chance to go over the—”

“Sister Sofie Novák, teacher, murdered in late 1971. Tell me what you were told.” He cuts to the chase, despite his promises.

“Apparently, there’s the two of them running the group,” Lottie starts. “Maureen and Jackie, both retired by now.”

“The nun’s students.”

“Yes.” She nods. “It was Maureen who I chatted with. She sounded very... excited.”

“Did she say why?”

“According to her, there had been rumors about a necklace in relation to the nun’s disappearance for years,” Lottie says. “They say they have evidence that Sister Sofie left to pick up a custom-made necklace she’d ordered in celebration of her sister’s engagement the night she disappeared.”

Something dark and unexplained squeezes Sherlock’s chest.

“They’re desperate to talk to me,” Lottie says, frowning. “To hear where I’d found it. But I… I thought it best to wait. Jerry’s calling up a lawyer later today, just in case.”

Sherlock nods, clearing his throat. “Did you tell them anything?”

Lottie shakes her head. “Just that I was a bit overwhelmed with arrangements following my uncle’s death, and that I’ll be happy to talk once I’ve put everything in order,” she says, taking a small pause. “There’s something else.”

Sherlock’s back straightens with hesitant anticipation.

“She said they’re making a documentary,” she says slowly, letting the meaning of things fall into place. “And asked whether I’d be willing to have them dig deeper into the necklace as part of the film, see where it leads them.”

“I see,” Sherlock says, pushing down the sense of foreboding sending a chill up his spine.

A documentary might just lead them all the way to John’s father, and what they’ll find there could wreak havoc on John’s name.

John, who’s still steadfastly denying the awful truths his wife has been keeping from him.

The rest of conversation is nothing but a haze, his brain humming restlessly like a beehive under attack. Later he recalls Lottie mentioning that she’ll be visiting with her mother the next day; she hopes her mother will be able to shed some light on her uncle’s past, and why the necklace ended up in his possession.

Anthea arrives sometime later, distractedly handing him a tablet device. When he looks at her with a question, she quotes Mycroft who thought ‘ _such sensitive information might be best locked behind a passcode instead of scattered around the flat for all to see._ ’

“Hmm,” he hums thankfully in return as she leaves the flat, her heels clicking down the stairs.

* * *

He’s staring down the microscope when the sounds of John’s heavy footsteps finally thunder through the flat hours later. He can hear the man’s fatigue in the cadence of his climb, the weight of the day weighing him down.

Ensuring the tablet is nowhere to be seen one last time, he moves the slide under the microscope just so; he’d made sure to have something on it to inspect. John always notices when there isn’t, giving Sherlock away.

Heart hammering in his throat ( _why? He’s not been doing anything wrong_ ), he favors John with a small smile when the man peeks at him through the sitting room door as he takes off his jacket.

“What a day,” John says, stepping into the kitchen, surveying whatever damage he’s expecting to find there. “What have you been up to?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Did you eat?”

“There were sandwiches somewhere along the way,” he grumbles nonchalantly.

“Hey,” John says, putting a gentle hand on Sherlock’s shoulder in order to grab his attention. It works. He jumps at the touch and John is suddenly so close, so very close, giving him a well-practiced doctor’s once-over. “Are you alright?”

Sherlock’s Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows, nodding his head in response. He stares back at the man who now stands at eye level.

There are photographs in the tablet Mycroft provided him with. Some are black and white, some sepia toned, depending on when they were taken. The man standing in front of him, looking softly at him, looks everything and nothing like the man in those photos.

It’s fascinating.

John has inherited his father’s eyes, his hair (not the nose—that must be his mother’s gift), and that very particular crease in his forehead, of the kind men wary of the way their lives turned out often wear.

Hamish Alistaire Watson, the son of a Liverpudlian Naval Officer, stood taller than most men at the time—unlike his only son. Based on a flurry of details he’d had the chance to quickly read through, he assigns John’s shorter stature to a combination of a premature birth and a sickly first few years, dotted with bouts of childhood asthma. A combination Sherlock would _bet his life_ has everything to do with the fact that John Watson, while shorter than his father, stands just as broad-shouldered, proud and defiant against the world.

He’s the sickly boy who grew up to be the captain of the rugby team, who shot at insurgents in the Afghan desert, who tackles criminals in the streets and stands up smiling with satisfaction once he’s had his way with them. Who— when Sherlock is being particularly contrary, medicated or on one rare occasion, drunk—can manhandle an unconscious six-foot detective up the stairs and into his bed without breaking sweat.

“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to check in,” John says, oblivious to Sherlock's emotional whirlwind. “The day was a bloody train wreck.”

“It’s alright.”

“How are you feeling? Did you take any pain medication today?” John asks, still searching for the tell-tale signs of pain and discomfort Sherlock habitually hides from him.

“Perfect. ‘Good as new.”

John’s head tilts ever so slightly. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Sherlock says proudly.

“Alright,” John says, grabbing one of the extra slides from next to Sherlock’s elbow and unceremoniously throwing it at the floor. “Pick it up.”

“What?”

“If you’re as good as you claim to be, bend over and pick it up.”

Sherlock blinks, his face tightening angrily at John’s cleverness.

“Thought so,” John says softly, squeezing Sherlock’s arm sympathetically. He has to stop himself from leaning into the comforting touch. “Not much longer, Sherlock, I promise.”

“So you say,” he acquiesces, disarmed as he is by the unexpected physicality tonight.

“I know you hate this but it’s not that bad, is it?” John starts, searching for Sherlock’s eyes. “Being stuck here with me?”

Whatever words Sherlock has in response to this—he knows he does, he knows plenty of words, after all—they die out prematurely.

“No,” he stupidly blurts, late—far too late. John’s already at the foot of the stairs to his room by now.

“Oh, by the way,” John calls over his shoulder. “Harry says hi.”

Sherlock squirms in his chair, surprised. “Your sister called?”

_What are the odds?_

“Er, no,” John huffs at the mere idea. “The other Harry, from the surgery. Said you’d know what it's about.”

“Oh,” Sherlock frowns, pressing his eyes back against the microscope viewer. “I know nothing about Harry and his collection of oriental sex toys.”

The declaration sends John’s brain into an audible spin. “Wait, wh—”

“Good night, John.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cherish every comment so please leave one 😊


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